image credit: Lydia

Welcome to the Book Nook!  This is the weekly thread for Avocados to discuss books we’re currently reading, recommendations, genre, and serious literary criticism. 

This week’s recommended discussion:  translations.  A good translation can bring us phenomenal world literature.  A bad translation can frustrate and confound.  We might not even know if we have a good translation or a bad one.  How do you judge, or what resources do you use to get the best translations?  Have you read any books in a non-native language, and what was the experience like? 
(hat tip to Jason P)

Because we’re here to use our words, this is a NO GIF/YouTube/social media embed zone.  The OTs are full of clutter, and I want to keep that out of this thread. Images related to a post are fine, though.

upcoming topics:
3/10:  audiobooks (h/t to Ornery Ballsack)
3/17:  favorites from your own country or culture (h/t to Eric Pharand)
3/24:  how middle/high school required reading worked (h/t to Warmerdam)
3/31:  literary trickery
4/7:  when good gimmicks go bad
4/14:  waiting is the hardest part – author and publisher delays
4/21:  celebrities who write
4/28:  better read at a different age (h/t to Pliny the Millennial)
5/5:  world lit every 80 days
5/12:  innovators – fiction and non-fiction that transformed the possibilities of the form
5/19:  authors whose books you’ll read, no matter what
5/26:  knowing culture or history to understand a book’s references (h/t Mongo Only Pawn)
6/2:  the dream cast for an adaptation (h/t Antononymous)
6/9:  read in order to avoid spoilers (h/t MisterSplendiferous)
6/16:  the definition of insanity
Book Nook posts every Wednesday at 8:15 AM Eastern.